When Kirsten Flagstad signed a contract with Decca she was already
past sixty but her voice was still intact. She had the experience
and stamina to carry through a comprehensive recording schedule
during the next few years. For EMI she had set down Tristan
und Isolde under Furtwängler and Dido and Aeneas under
Geraint Jones. Now came - also with Jones - Gluck’s Alceste.
Somewhat later she took the role as Fricka in Solti’s Das
Rheingold, the first instalment in the first complete Ring
des Nibelungen. Under Solti she recorded the third act of Die
Walküre and the first act under Knappertsbusch. Decca
also wanted her to set down act II, but Flagstad was reluctant
and in the end she only recorded the Todesverkündigung with
Solti and her long-time partner Set Svanholm. All these recordings
and a great number of song recitals are now being reissued by
Eloquence on fifteen CDs. In due time I will report on the total
oeuvre.

These recordings of the two outer acts of Die Walküre are
interesting also for the conductors’ views, since we here
meet two great Wagnerians with almost diametrically opposite
attitudes. Knappertsbusch was the great epic master, shaping
long arcs of continuity and stressing the inherent beauty of
the music; Solti was the dramatic, often stressing the thrill
and intensity of the moment. The openings of the two acts are
instructive - and also well suited to the two conductors’ temperaments.
The act I prelude is no doubt dramatic in its dark menace, but
it is also a kind of story-telling. Wagner paints the scene:
outside a terrible storm, within Siegmund, exhausted and with
throbbing heart - not only for running to seek shelter from the
storm but also from as yet unknown pursuers. This is well depicted
in Kna’s reading. He also draws glowing playing from the
VPO strings, alternately urging them on and holding back. The
cello solo before Siegmund’s Kühlende Labung has
rarely been so beautifully restrained. But beautiful as most
of the act is, it seems that there is some lack of adrenaline.

Solti’s Ride of the Walküre is among the most
adrenaline intense with roaring brass resounding across the imaginary
stage. This is a battle-call - not just a picture of the rocky
landscape. And this feeling is retained throughout the act, Solti
wringing every drop of inherent power from the score.

How much the conducting affects the singing is hard to say. The
common denominator in both acts is Kirsten Flagstad, and she
doesn’t even impersonate the same character. Sieglinde
was her debut role at the Met in 1935, when she became the Wagner
soprano overnight, but she sang it rather infrequently after
that and by 1957 sounded too matronly for the role. She was still
able to lighten the tone but by and large it is a Brünnhilde
we hear. There is no denying, however, that her vocal powers
were largely undiminished and in the final scene - which in effect
is one long love duet with ever-increasing ecstasy - she delivers
glorious singing, with Du bist der Lenz as the crowning
glory. We must certainly be grateful that her adoption of this
role has been preserved for posterity.

At her side Set Svanholm, with whom she regularly appeared on
both sides of the Atlantic, is a pillar of strength. His was
a voice with a lot of gleaming steel in it but he could also
be restrained. He begins Winterstürme softly and
gradually increases the intensity, making this one of the more
memorable versions of the song. Before that he has been at his
most heroic in Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater, where
the cries of Wälse, Wälse are formidable.

To match these two veterans, Decca chose the fairly young Dutch
bass Arnold van Mill for the role of Hunding. Van Mill had been
singing at Bayreuth since the reopening of the festival in 1951
and had a long career in various roles. His was a warm and baritonal
voice, treated with almost bel canto elegance - but he
lacked the black malevolence of a Gottlob Frick or a Matti Salminen.
It may not be necessary that an evil character is portrayed gnashing
teeth and spitting venom but in particular on record there has
to be something frightening. Van Mill is more a Hans Sachs.

Though there are several drawbacks with this performance I maintain
that we are privileged to be able to hear two of the greatest
Wagner singers from the previous century in such good shape and
in a recording produced by John Culshaw and Erik Smith that is
still fully acceptable.

The third act, recorded a few months earlier, finds Flagstad
in her element as Brünnhilde. Solti’s complete recording
of Die Walküre had to wait another ten years, but
this act is no mere run-through, and even though it isn’t
the spectacular sonic experience of the complete Ring, it
is a worthy product. The supporting cast is also well chosen.
Among the walküres we find names like Ilona Steingruber,
Hetty Plümacher, a young Claire Watson and Grace Hoffman,
who graced (excuse the pun) several important recordings during
the 1950s and 1960s. Marianne Schech was an experienced Strauss
and Wagner singer and though initially she sounds rather pale,
she blossoms and sings gloriously in O hehrstes Wunder.
Otto Edelmann, one of the great basses of his day, was famous
for his Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier and several Wagner
roles. Here he sings Wotan with stern authority, sometimes rather
heavy and foursquare, and many of his top notes are severely
strained. Still he manages to make something memorable of many
of the key moments, but he is no match for Hans Hotter in this
role. By 1967, when Solti’s Walküre was issued,
Hotter was past his best and his voice was frayed and vibrato-laden,
but he was still able to turn a phrase memorably. There is however
a separate recording of the second half of act III, made in 1957,
the same year as this set, with Leopold Ludwig conducting and
Birgit Nilsson as Brünnhilde. There Hotter is heard in all
his magnificence. That disc - now on Testament - should be in
every collection as a corrective to whatever other version(s)
one has.

And what about Flagstad? It is a monumental reading, sensitive
and glorious and sung with admirably steady tone. No one can
really mistake this singer for a young or middle-aged woman but
no one could believe either that it is a woman of sixty-two with
behind her a career of forty-four years, the last twenty devoted
to heavy-weight roles like Isolde, Brünnhilde and Fidelio.
Then it’s a matter of personal taste if one prefers the
silver-white brilliance of Birgit Nilsson or the bronze-tinted
magnificence of Flagstad. At any rate this is a recording that
will forever serve as one model for how Brünnhilde
should be interpreted.

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